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Got a Minute?

How many times in any given day are you asked that question?

And how many times in the day does someone just barge in with their request, asking their question or explaining their problem without even a token “got a minute?”

If you’re like most of my clients, you’re probably rolling your eyes right now and wondering why I’m even bothering to ask such a silly question. Even when you work remotely from the corporate headquarters, perhaps in a home office or other isolated location, you still get interrupted all the time by phone calls, emails flagged “urgent!”, instant messages, and/or text messages. And though like everyone else you bemoan the extent to which you’re interrupted, you could be just as guilty as the next person when it comes to interrupting others.

Studies show that today’s knowledge worker is interrupted in some way every 11 minutes — and that it takes an average of 16 minutes 33 seconds to get back on track after an email interruption. So it’s not just a dreadful annoyance, but also a very significant time-waster. In fact, some companies (such as Intel and Deloitte and Touche) have instituted email-free days in an effort to regain some of that very expensive lost productivity.

Even if you’re in a cubicle with no door, or in a company with an open-door policy, there are ways to reduce the interruptions you’re subjected to — and the ones you inflict on others.

Close that door!

It can feel very strange, but if you’ve got a door, use it. If someone comments, just explain that you needed focus time for an important project. When they see that you’re not lurking behind closed doors all the time, they’ll get over the initial shock.

You, on the other hand, may find yourself feeling fidgety or even claustrophobic behind that closed door. Many corporate offices are quite small, and if your desk is cluttered and your floor piled with papers and books and other odds and ends, you may feel trapped with the disorder when you close that door. But the feeling will pass (especially if you take a little time to clear things up!), and you’ll find that you come to value both your uninterrupted focus time and your open-door available time.

On the other side of the coin, respect the closed doors of others. Come back later, schedule a fifteen-minute meeting on their calendar, catch them in the hall ... just don’t barge in when the door is closed.

Learn to say “no”

Yes, I know: everyone advises this, and it never gets any easier to actually do it. But you won’t destroy relationships, cause your subordinates to hate you, or lose your job if you occasionally say “no” when someone asks, “Got a minute?”

Try “Actually, no, I don’t have time right now. Can you come back in an hour?” Remember that you don’t need to explain or justify your “no.” If it’s your boss or another senior-to-you person making the request, try, “Could I come see you in an hour? That would be better; I'm really focused right now.”

Remember to respect other people’s “no” when you hear it — which means not saying your question is really quick! It’s not the quickness of the interruption that matters; it’s that it happens at all. Be sensitive to tone of voice and body language. Learning to hear the unspoken “no” will earn you respect and appreciation, which will lead to greater cooperation in the future when your request really is urgent.

Don’t answer the phone

Some people manage this quite naturally, and others seem to have an instinctive phone-answering reflex. If you’re one of the instinctive ones, consider the possibility that you really don’t have to answer every time it rings. Turn the ringer off if you can (just remember to turn it back on again!). Move the phone to where you can’t reach it easily. Put something over it to remind you that you’re in non-answering time.

Remember that your phone is happily unattended when you’re in meetings, at lunch (you do take lunch, right?), or on vacation (you do take vacations, right?). If the thought of someone not able to reach you really bothers you, update your voicemail message to tell people when you’ll be available. You can even indicate what time you’ll be responding to messages.

Turn off email

I freely admit that I’m an email addict. I’m writing this in between out-of-office meetings, and I have to say that my inability to find a coffee shop with free wireless is making me a tad nervous.

However, I’m also getting a lot more done than I do in a typical afternoon when I respond to each email as it comes in. My clients love my responsiveness, which is one reason I seldom turn email off — and at the same time, I’m conscious of the trade-off I make with productivity.

Just as with the telephone, your email is unattended when you’re away from your computer, and the sun seems to keep coming up every morning. If you can’t turn off your email altogether, at least turn off the chime and the pop-up notifications that show up in the middle of whatever you’re trying to focus on!

Which will you try?

Trying just one of these will bring benefits of greater productivity — and could even result in less time in the office, especially if you often come in early or work late to avoid interruptions.

So try one or two — or all four — of these ideas for a few days or a week, and see what happens. If at the end of a week’s experimentation you can honestly say that it’s not working for you, then you can always go back to letting the interruptions happen. But I’m betting that you, like most of my clients, will be pleasantly surprised by what happens.

“It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.” Rod Serling, 1924-1975, American screenwriter best known for his science-fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone

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